


Bold & Prideful

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Casual Sex, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 18:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20821748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: “I was told once, by a Keeper in Antiva, that all elves are tied together by a sense of tragedy. Even before Arlathan fell, she said, elves have felt so deeply that tragedy becomes them as easily as shoots become trees, as corpses become bones. It is the natural way of things."





	Bold & Prideful

**Author's Note:**

> This is it, guys. This is self-indulgence city.

It wasn’t often that one saw the Nightingale in the Herald’s Rest. She didn’t tend to allow herself to relax at all, seeing such things as a distraction from her work, and while Solas respected it, he did wonder… She had used to be much lighter once upon a time, he was informed, much freer, much happier and easier of smile.

Watching her now, Solas could believe it.

She was seated toward the corner of the room, her hood for once drawn back, and she was speaking over glasses of Antivan wine with an elf Solas had never seen before. He wore Dalish clothes, a green tunic and leggings, halla hide boots with silver embroidery, but the rings on his fingers were golden, as was the ring through his ear, and the tattoos on his face were not at all like vallaslin. He had long hair that reminded Solas, inescapably, of a home long-past: it was shaved on one side, a braid curling along the shaved half, and on the other side it was loose and soft.

He was laughing, his handsome head thrown back.

“You can’t _speak_ to him like that!” Leliana was saying, giggling like a woman much younger, her cheeks red. “He’s the Arishok now!”

“We are friends!” the elf replied. “And if he was offended, he would tell me so. I know the Arishok would not hold back his tongue if he wanted to _whip_ me with it, and I asked him _many_ times to—”

Leliana laughed, burying her face in her hands, and Solas made to move past, but the elf turned his gaze, and it landed on Solas. There was a sadness in his eyes that Solas did not expect: it seemed to all but shine from their glinting depths even as he smiled, showing white teeth. It was subtle, a deep-buried melancholy. Solas perhaps only recognised it because he saw it often in the looking glass Dorian had placed in the library.

“Who is _this_?” the elf asked, leaning forward. He had a thick Antivan accent, but no discomfort with the tongue that Solas could make out. “So many elves in Skyhold, and so many of them Dalish.”

“I am not Dalish,” Solas said.

“But you are no city elf,” he insisted, getting to his feet.

“This is Solas,” Leliana said, and the elf let out a delighted noise, putting out a hand.

“_Pride!_ What a name for a handsome man.” The proclamation came with a salacious growl, and never, not for a moment, did Solas tear his gaze away from his eyes, still so sad. “What is it you are proud of?”

Solas couldn’t help the surprise on his face at the boldness of the other man, his lips parting, even as he took his hand and shook it. He had a warm hand, strong, and it was marked all over with small burns and acid marks – the mark of a long-time rogue. “Were you to ask any of those who call themselves my friends, they might tell you I’m proud of everything.”

“Who _call_ themselves your friends, hm,” the elf repeated, his head tilting. “You have a funny way of phrasing things.”

“Solas, this is Zevran Arainai,” Leliana said, hiding her smile. She did not usually trust Solas any more than most, but it seemed that she was relaxed tonight, for she looked at him with warmth enough in her features. “Like me, he fought at the side of the Hero of Ferelden.”

“Ah, I have heard of the Grey Warden Mahariel,” Solas murmured, politely. “What was she like?”

“Lyna?” Zevran asked, and looking at his eyes Solas understood everything: they _gleamed_ with brightness, and although the grief seemed to radiate from Zevran in heavy swathes, it seemed it was only Solas noticed it. His tone was still light, his body language still free and easy, and he laughed softly. “She was _everything_.”

\--

“I am told,” Zevran said, sliding into the seat beside Solas when Leliana had left, making Solas glance up from the book he was reading, “that you do not often _visit_ this tavern.”

“I am required by a lost wager to attend for two hours per week,” Solas said pleasantly, and Zevran laughed, tapping his fingers upon the table. “You and Master Tethras are acquainted, I take it.”

“He and his friend Hawke helped me from an encounter some years back,” Zevran said, nodding his head. “We had a mutual friend.”

“It seems you have friends from far and wide,” Solas said, closing his book. “There are not many outsiders that the Dalish will accept so freely, and yet the Inquisitor tells me he met you previously, at the last Arlathvhen.”

The meeting of the Dalish clans, Solas was informed, happened every ten years or so – a time when mages might be swapped to more suitable clans for their training, when what little useless and cobbled-together lore might be scribbled down in what amounted to Dalish records. Such was their purpose: accumulating old knowledge from half-destroyed ruins and dead men’s bones, and achieving naught at all. The bitterness of the thought stung Solas’ throat.

“Lyna asked me to,” Zevran said quietly. “We learned much, when we travelled Ferelden, before the time came to face the Archdemon. And then, I… I was aimless. I travelled with her clan for a time, and decided to devote myself to collecting records from those ruins that the Dalish could not safely reach.”

“Why such loyalty to the Dalish?” Solas asked.

“You dislike the Dalish,” Zevran purred, smiling as if there was some hidden joke in the sentence. “And you dislike _taverns! _You, Solas, are a funny man.”

“Am I indeed?” Solas asked, raising his eyebrows. “Bold statements to make of a man you’ve met but hours before.”

“I am bold, my friend,” Zevran said. “If I was as you, my name would be Bold! You think it’s a good name, yes? _Trom!”_

Solas laughed, strangely charmed by the other man’s ease, his brightness in conversation, and yet… It had been nearly a decade since the Blight had ended with Mahariel’s sacrifice at the hands of the Archdemon, Grey Wardens doing as they could with forces they did not and could not understand. And still, the sadness…

“What is it that brings you here, _Trom_?”

“Well, _Solas_,” Zevran said, beaming, “I had a message to deliver to the Nightingale. This is all. I will move on, then.”

“To where?”

“I do not know,” Zevran said, shrugging his shoulders. “Leliana, she asks if I would join you here, but I know how you would make use of me. I would be an assassin for the Inquisition, and this…” He trailed off. “I can do this. It is not hard. But it is not the life I wish for. Your Inquisitor, he asks me to go to his clan, so this is what I shall do.”

“He worries for his clan,” Solas murmured. “It is only natural.”

“From what clan do you come?”

“I come from no clan. As I told you, I am no Dalish.”

“What, did you fall out of the Rift?” Zevran asked, arching his eyebrows. “No clan, but not from a city either… Who made you, my friend? Who raised you? Where is it you call home?”

“You ask a great many questions.”

“And when I get no answers, I make my own,” Zevran said, winking.

“How bold of you,” Solas murmured, standing. “But alas, my two prescribed hours of crowded contact are at an end.”

“Please,” Zevran said, “allow me to walk you safely to your door.”

“Will you stop at the stoop, if I let you?”

“If you tell me to.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I will not.” Zevran’s fingers touched the back of Solas’ hand where it clasped around the book, and for a moment it seemed as though the tavern faded away from about them. Zevran looked up at him, his gaze intent and so full of that desperate melancholy, so all-encompassing in one so young. It was the sadness of a man who had lost his one great love.

The way that he was looking up at Solas, Solas could only imagine what he thought he saw in Solas’ own eyes, and yet, was he not right? Was there not a shared thread between them, however thin and flimsy?

“You are sure _Trom_ would be your name?” Solas asked softly. “And not Hella?”

“_Noble_, me?” Zevran asked, and he gasped, ostentatious, theatrical. “Do not say such things. My reputation as a rogue will be ruined.”

“Walk with me,” Solas murmured, and Zevran came with graceful step.

\--

“I was told once, by a Keeper in Antiva, that all elves are tied together by a sense of tragedy. Even before Arlathan fell, she said, elves have felt so deeply that tragedy becomes them as easily as shoots become trees, as corpses become bones. It is the natural way of things. Is this true, when you walk the Fade?”

Solas watched Zevran, sprawled as he was in the bed, a light sheen of sweat still gleaming on his chest, his hair a loose mess about his head. His eyes were half-lidded, as though he would soon sleep, and Solas wondered what that would be like, to have someone sleep beside him, to listen to their breathing, in his own bed.

“A wise woman,” Solas said softly, leaning closer, his hands either side of Zevran’s waist, and doing as he could to ignore the ache in his chest. “Alas, I fear she was right.”

“You are too handsome to be so sad,” Zevran said in an equally soft voice, sliding his fingers over Solas’ throat, his knuckles brushing the base of his chin. “But how I can chide you, when I am so much _more_ handsome, and just as sad?”

Solas laughed, despite himself, and Zevran smiled.

“No one sees sadness when they look at me,” Solas murmured. “Only you. Perhaps you are projecting.”

“They see it,” Zevran replied, shrugging his shoulders. “Your friends. They do not comment on it, for they are your friends. This is the way of things, hm?”

Solas drew his fingers into Zevran’s hair, and he pulled the other man to kiss him. Zevran surged up to do so, and they tumbled onto their sides together. It was not as it was, before everything. But there was something in it, a warmth in the intimacy – there was something safe in a widower’s touch, knowing he would not feel things that he oughtn’t for Solas, knowing that there was no danger of some malformed love connection.

“You do not seem so prideful,” Zevran mumbled against his chest, later on, when they were tangled together, their breathing even, preparing for sleep. There were still so many hours before the dawn.

“Solas is not my only name,” Solas replied, for reasons he could not explain, perhaps because he is lonely and exhausted and half-mad from bad choices; perhaps because he doubts Zevran will ever bother to share this conversation with anyone of note.

“Really? You seem like a man with many names,” the other elf said, drifting. “Like one of those animals that many clans name differently, because it lives so long, but walks alone, half-legendary. You know, a bear, or a halla…”

“A wolf?” Solas suggested, and Zevran laughed softly, his head lolling.

“Yes,” he murmured, smiling, as if at a memory. “Like an old, old wolf.”

Solas curled his fingers in Zevran’s hair, and he let the Fade take him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr,](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) to talk about DA in general, and definitely to recommend blogs to follow! I am open for requests (for Origins, II, and Inq). I also run a no-drama Dragon Age Discord, which [you can join here.](https://discordapp.com/invite/ttgP5v8) Please comment if you can!


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